Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 141425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Fortunately, Parker and Sabrina are oblivious to my libido’s plight. They’re busy sorting through the packs of stickers, and handing me moons and stars. Parker’s chattering nonstop about astronomy facts while Sabrina hums under her breath, seeming completely at ease. I force myself to focus on their conversation instead of her stomach.
“Do you think this is Betelgeuse?” Sabrina asks Parker as she hands me a sticker with five points even though she’s not on the clock today.
“No, I don’t think it’s the right size,” Parker says with the authority of an amateur astronomer. “We need a bigger one.”
“Well, you’d better find it,” Sabrina says, urging him along. “It’s really important to put it on the ceiling. Also, I think you should add the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy, so you can be prepared for their collision.”
He rolls his blue eyes, but it’s playful, not patronizing. “Okay, those are way too big to represent with stickers,” Parker says.
“I don’t know. That seems like a challenge you’d definitely be up for. Come on, Mister Lego,” she teases.
“Oh, those are fighting words,” I say.
This is helping matters. This back-and-forth between the two of them is helping. Because I’m focused on that now, instead of the way she looks—entirely too tempting in baggy jeans and a short white shirt.
Parker hands me more stickers and tells me where to place them. I follow his instructions religiously, stretching to reach the ceiling while craning my neck to make sure I get the placement right. This repetitive task is far more helpful to my overactive libido than looking at Sabrina.
But an hour later, with a crick in my neck and a ceiling covered in stars, I climb down and find myself face-to-face with her again.
Wincing as the pain shoots through me, I stretch my neck from side to side. Sabrina flashes me a quizzical look while Parker admires the ceiling. “Are you okay?” she asks, her eyes full of concern.
“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing my hand against the back of my neck where a dragon’s laid an egg, “but I have a new sympathy for Michelangelo now.”
“Aren’t you a Renaissance daddy,” she says, then pats my shoulder.
Hello, zing. That is not supposed to feel so good.
I am a grown man. A father. And I’m affected by my kids’ nanny like a fucking thirteen-year-old boy. But I practice my vaunted dick control, imagining—who would have thought this would be a boner killer—skate blades.
Ha. Take that, hormones. You’re not going to get the best of me.
“All right,” I say to Parker, rubbing my palms together, focusing on business, the task at hand. “What do you think? Does anything need to be adjusted?”
My son is lying on his bed, staring critically at the ceiling with narrowed eyes. “I think I need to be in the dark to know for sure.”
“Well, fortunately, you have blinds.” I move around his room to pull down the wooden shutters. It’s evening, but it’s still not dark enough.
“Why don’t I grab some dark sheets?” Sabrina suggests, then hustles out of there, quickly returning with a set of black linen from the closet in the hall. Without using thumbtacks or anything else, she loops them around the top of the wooden blinds as footsteps grow louder—Luna must have emerged from her room to check things out.
“That’s impressive,” I say with a low whistle as I appraise Sabrina’s work.
“I’m a little crafty,” Sabrina replies as Luna pops into the room, her ponytail bouncing.
“That’s true. Sabrina makes her own costumes,” Luna says.
Why does that excite me? I don’t even know, but I turn to Sabrina for confirmation. “You made your own skating costumes?”
“Necessity is also the mother of invention. I had to, so I taught myself to sew,” she says, twisting the final sheet into place. “What do you think?”
I think I want to know why she had to, but I also think she doesn’t want to talk about it this second as the room transforms. The ceiling glows with thousands of stars.
Parker gasps. “This is amazing,” he says.
“You did good picking these out,” Sabrina says to him with a smile visible in the darkness.
“Thank you for helping,” Parker says, a little guilt and gratitude in his tone. He’s not angling to be her best friend. He doesn’t treat her the same way he did Agatha. But he’s warming up to her, and I’m glad for that.
“Yeah, I kind of like them too,” Luna says, admiring the stars, then tapping her chin. “But I’d want a disco ball instead.”
Sabrina’s eyes light up. “Disco balls are so cool. I wanted disco balls in my room so badly when I was a kid.”
“Did you have them?” Luna asks, hanging on Sabrina’s every word.
She shakes her head, her shiny blonde hair swishing. “My parents said I couldn’t. They thought it was too immature. But I was a kid—I was supposed to be immature.”